Chuck Shute Podcast

Paul Laine (The Defiants, ex Danger Danger)

November 18, 2021 Paul Laine Season 3 Episode 195
Chuck Shute Podcast
Paul Laine (The Defiants, ex Danger Danger)
Show Notes Transcript

Episode 195- Paul Laine! Paul started his career as a solo artist. He learned a lot by watching Steven Tyler and Aerosmith record the “Pump” album with his producer Bruce Fairbarn. He also sang backup vocals on Poison’s “Flesh & Blood” album as well as The Scorpions “Face the Heat.” He also toured with Bryan Adams, Richard Marx and Joe Satriani. He then joined Danger Danger and was their singer for 11 years. He now has reunited w/ the bass player from that band, Bruno Ravel for “The Defiants.” Lots of great stories in this one! 

0:00:00 - Intro
0:01:54 - Paul's Story
0:02:43 - Rush Tribute Band
0:03:29 - Leaving Home Early 
0:05:48 - Working in a Recording Studio
0:08:09 - Solo Career Beginnings 
0:10:10 - Hustling for $70,000
0:14:53 - Record Company Connections 
0:19:47 - Doc McGee Kicks Paul Out 
0:22:23 - Learning from Steven Tyler 
0:27:50 - Solo Album "Stick It In Your Ear"
0:30:01 - Solo Shows
0:32:48 - Singing Back Up on Poison's Album 
0:35:15 - Danger Danger Fires Ted & Calls Paul
0:39:53 - Dawn Album & Gasoline Bath 
0:41:50 - Alice In Chains Story 
0:43:32 - Danger Danger Live Shows 
0:45:01 - Tour with UFO & Michael Schenker
0:47:24 - Shugaazer 
0:50:01 - Studio Work & Clubs at Night 
0:53:45 - Darkhorse & The Defiants 
0:58:35 - Writing for TV & Film 
1:02:26 - Future Live Shows & Danger Danger? 
1:04:50 - Jet Set Junkies 
1:07:55 - Weather, Arizona & Vancouver 
1:11:21 - Children's Hospital 
1:12:08 - Wrap Up 

Paul Laine Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/paullaineofficial

The Defiants Vinyl: 
https://frontiers-us.shop/products/the-defiants-the-defiants-2xlp?fbclid=IwAR3NTT7G4HGmMYPNxuFl7kX-3MFU6G-Geg_sTxhit_s9PJvfyUYe9onLdYA

Children's Hospital website:
https://www.nationwidechildrens.org/giving

Chuck Shute website:
http://chuckshute.com

Support the show

Thanks for Listening & Shute for the Moon!

Chuck Shute:

Welcome to the show. It's good to be back. I was in Mexico, and how a lot of fun and then I had some cancellations that will hopefully be rescheduled. So make sure that you are subscribed to the show or you follow it wherever you listen, so you don't miss any future episodes. And if you're already subscribed or following, then I thank you very much. But also maybe it's time to take the next step in a relationship. And you could share the podcast on your social media. And maybe even someday you could write me a review. We can work up to that though. That's that's not a rush. So my guest today, Mr. Paul lane. Well, this is exciting, because I think I've tried since I think since day one, when I started the show to try to get a member of Danger, danger. On this podcast. For some reason, I cannot get Bruno or Andy or Ted or even rob the new guitar player. I was close with Steve, but it just didn't happen. And then my good buddy Rob lane. No relation to Paul. He's a host of straight to video podcast, he suggested he wants to get Paul lane. You know, he was in danger, danger. And I was like, Oh, yeah. And I'm glad I did. Because this is a really fun episode. He's got so many great stories of his solo career and starting out so young, and just how he hustled and he got a solo record. And then he learned from Steven Tyler, you know, on how to record and write music. And then he played on the poison flesh and blood album did backup vocals for every single song he told me. And then he joined Danger, danger. And then we talked about, you know, he's doing the TV and film work now. And he's got new projects in the defiance and another band called jetset. junkies. So get comfortable. Grab a nice beverage and enjoy this episode. Please welcome Paul lane to the show. I'm excited to chat with you. How you doing?

Paul Laine:

Good, man. How you doing? Chuck?

Chuck Shute:

Great, just great. So yeah, I've done a little bit of a deep dive with your career and stuff. So I'm hoping we can just go through as much of it as we can. I don't think a lot of people know your story, because I know I didn't. And I'm a fan. So should be fun.

Paul Laine:

Yeah, I you know, kind of, you know, kept everything on the download, I guess.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I haven't seen a lot of interviews with I had to kind of like, like search here. There's a YouTube one here. There's a print out, you know, interview here, but I found out some great stuff. And your story is kind of interesting. What's that?

Paul Laine:

I said, I work too much. Yeah, well, that's yeah,

Chuck Shute:

you definitely know a lot. You got the solo career Danger, danger than the finance and then the film and TV stuff. So yeah, if we could start at the beginning, though. So was your first band, a rush tribute band called holograph? Is that right?

Paul Laine:

Yes. How do you? Nobody knows that. That's funny. Yes. When I was when I was a kid I formed it was a massive rush fan. Like what Canadian kid wasn't in the, in the 80s. So yeah, I had a bunch of buddies in high school. And that's what we did. We we did, you know, mainly rush tributes, which of course, you know, that's not a good thing to be doing out in the clubs. How old were

Chuck Shute:

you when that when that band started? 15 Okay, so that was after you because you left home and like 13 or something? That's pretty crazy.

Paul Laine:

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I left home. Um, you know, I was a, I was a foster kid. And then adopted. And then I, like, adopted family situation was not good. And I got emancipation from my family, which was the lane family. And yeah, basically, struck out on my own at 13 moved in with my boss and her husband, I had a job and kept going to school. And, you know, decided to make, I always was going to do music. I always knew that, that that's what I was meant to do. But leaving home and getting out of that situation, kind of, you know, allowed that all to happen.

Chuck Shute:

Hmm. So music kind of saved you in a way because I mean, you could have gone a different way. With kids with troubled home. I used to be a counselor. I saw this all the time. Kids with troubled homes. I mean, they get into drugs, they get messed up and it's almost like music was your refuge.

Paul Laine:

Absolutely. I don't know where I'd be without music. That was that was just like my focus. And it you know, I guess being I was always writing songs even as a child. But this just allowed me to the freedom to you know, go pursue it was this very supportive people that I was living with at the time

Chuck Shute:

was this. Okay, was this the people that were you worked at the recording studio, or was this was that later?

Paul Laine:

No, this is I had a job at a hotel. Tell when I was that our role a little bit when I was 12, my, my father had a nervous breakdown and then basically never came home again. And I grew up on a farm. And so me and my brother and my sisters basically just got jobs when my when my father wasn't there anymore. And so yeah, I worked at a hotel at night. So I would go, you know, work the farm in the morning at five, go to school, my job or in the afternoon, after school and work till two in the morning, and then bike home and do it all over again. So, um, I think when I was young, it taught me a huge work work ethic growing up that way. And servos question, I

Chuck Shute:

think, no, it's just because at one point, you started working in a recording studio, and I guess you made some sort of deal with the studio owner that you would help people write songs. Like, how old were you when you're doing that?

Paul Laine:

So So yeah, that was right around the same time when I was I was starting to do first demos at 15. And there was a recording studio not too far away from me. I live I live on Vancouver Island. I know you're from Issaquah. So you know, how did you know that? You know, cuz I look stuff up.

Chuck Shute:

Okay. Yeah, we're close. I used to drive to Vancouver to drink when I was 19. Because you could drink in Canada.

Paul Laine:

Right, right. Cuz 21 Is this is Washington state. Right? Right. Yeah. So um, so yeah, there was a little recording studio, a little 16 track studio, and I recorded my first demos there. And there was a fella by the name of Scott Little John who, who ran the studio. And obviously, I just I was in completely enamored with, you know, recording music. And I just bugged the hell out of him, and said, you know, like, tell me stories about the studio. Tell me what being an engineers like, tell me about the clients that come in. And what's the weirdest? You know, thing that happens in the studio like day to day and he goes, well, people show up with poems. And they think that they can record it, you know, that that's what I do here. And I don't and I said, Well, I go, how about you take me on, I'll compose music on the spot for whatever and you'll get the client and I'll get, I'll get to learn how to use the studio. That's the deal. I'll make you think he's sort of looked at me. And thought, Who is this kid? Eventually, that happened one day, he called me and I started working with him. And so fast forward, you know, a few years later, when he was re doing his studio and bringing new techniques, technology was obviously changing from tape digital, he sold me all of his studio equipment for lamp next to nothing. And so I had my own, you know, home studio from that point on, he helped set me up and I was still a teenager. And, and that kind of got me into being able to, to record my own stuff and really experiment a lot.

Chuck Shute:

That's awesome. And then so then you kind of you started doing like a solo career. Did you ever think of like putting a band together though? Like, why did you want to be a solo artist? That seems odd for such a young age.

Paul Laine:

I didn't, I didn't want to be a solo artist at all. So when I, um, I, you know, I was very naive, like I was, you know, a teenager when I started shopping for record deals. I got a deal when I was young. And I thought wrongly, that, um, you know, because I composed all the music. I thought that I could get to deal and then just be the guitar player. Right. And, and be I mean, I wanted to be Eddie Van, I want to be a guy behind the scenes kind of thing. You know, I didn't want to be in the forefront. I certainly wasn't going to be the singer in my original, you know, concept of what I wanted to do. Hmm. But invariably, you know, what my voice was on all the songs and

Chuck Shute:

right so it's more of a songwriter because I think not to explain this story where you you met with some record executive, it's like the guy that signed Bryan Adams, and he listened to all your music and then he said, You're good, but you're not good enough. I mean, that could have been like a killer right there that could have like stopped you, but you just when you recreated it or whatever you

Paul Laine:

Yeah, I just told him like, how am I not good? And I asked him, How am I not good enough? I totally got it. Michael Gridania. He signed, he signed Bryan Adams to a&m. And he was at that time he was the also the manager of Paul Janz who was like a Canadian artists at the time, that was you know, doing well here. So I just asked Michael I go so what do I what do I need to do tell me how I need to fix this and he said, he gave me five songs. He said go home and find out why these are hits and why yours are lacking what these have, and that was 17 at that point, and I was fucking crushed. but it was like the best advice ever. And then he's the guy who I ended up negotiating. When I got all the record contracts coming in. From the different labels. I hired him to negotiate my, my deal. Wow, wait, so

Chuck Shute:

how did you 17 You raise 70 grand to record how the hell did you get 70 grand at age 17? That's insane.

Paul Laine:

I'm a hustler. Um, you know what I was, uh, I was playing the bar scene. I had then switched from being in a rush tribute acts.

Chuck Shute:

Okay,

Paul Laine:

it's funny, man. I feel like so embarrassed having this conversation. So nerdy.

Chuck Shute:

Why it's cool. I've never got to be in a band. I think it sounds amazing.

Paul Laine:

But a rush tribute act is sort of like, that's the nerdiest thing musically. You

Chuck Shute:

could do is it was there. I'm assuming there's a lot of those in Canada though. Right? Yeah,

Paul Laine:

I think so. I think like, oh, you know, I think a lot of us growing up that seem like they were like, the pinnacle. I mean, I look back now I still love rush, but I go. Yeah, you know, you can't play spirit of the radio in a nightclub.

Chuck Shute:

It reminds me I just had Paul Gilbert from you know, he was a Mr. Big and, and he was like, he was saying like when he would play. Instead of getting like groupies. He'd get like, people come up to him after asking for guitar lessons. Like he was like, kind of he was like a music nerd. He's hilarious. If you listen to his interviews, he's really funny.

Paul Laine:

I did a tour with, I did the flying in a blue dream tour with Joe Satriani across Canada. And it was like, totally the same scene. I mean, like his hair metal thing, whatever the hell I was, and opening for Joe Satriani and, and I would just, like, face this, you know, 1000s of dudes and black T shirts, like, get off the stage. And then afterwards, just like no girls, just add just a you know, huge lineup of dudes asking, asking Joe, dude, what kind of pedal do you use?

Chuck Shute:

Right, right. So anyway, so you're playing with a top 40 band. And so then you you got to somehow you got $70,000. So

Paul Laine:

what I did is I always had these, you know, where I grew up. And much like where you grew up, you know, it's all loggers. And fishermen here where I live, yeah, back in the 80s especially, and all those guys drank heavy, and party heavy, and I would meet them in the nightclubs and it always be like, kid you got and I was young, right? Obviously, I was seven, I was underage playing the nightclubs. And, you know, they were always saying, like, You should do something with this. And I kind of formulated this plan in my head, I knew that I could start a limited company. And I was a weird nerdy kid who like, you know, read Canadian Music law books. And, and I want to just take Yeah, I had this book called The Platinum rainbow, which was another really influential book when I was a teenager, just basically a step by step of, of, you know, how you should try to approach getting a record deal. And so between meeting people and formulating this whole idea that like, because I had no money, I knew I could start a limited company. So I did that. And I knew I could have 14 investors. So then I started picking out all the drunk fishermen lager dudes, I knew who were throwing cash around. And I, I, we have a thing in Canada called RSP Registered Retirement Savings Plan, which is like, I don't know what the equivalent is in a 401k. Or Okay. Alright. So you can buy these every year. And that was my, that was my spiel to all these drunk dudes saying, Hey, I think I could make you a better return. If you invest with me, then putting that money into RSP Wow. And it worked. It worked anyways, I think at the end of the day, just, you know, a lot of folks wanted to back me in very kind. And that's yeah, that's how I started the company. I use that to fund recording at a bigger studio. And because my idea was that I would make a record. And at least I would have that record, if, you know, after I shopped it, and no one wanted it, I would have something you know. So that's that's kind of that's how I got my start. And and then I used that money to go down to LA and start shopping for a deal and just, you know, hustled my way into getting a contract.

Chuck Shute:

How do you so when you just go to LA like because this is before the internet, so I don't understand how you're doing all this stuff. Like you're finding the guy that signed Bryan Adams and you're going to LA like, how do you even know where to go? Or you're just knocking on doors literally, like physically?

Paul Laine:

That's essentially why I'll tell you a little story behind it. It's, um, so yeah, in the late 80s, um, you know, you had to You had to know somebody at the record labels, right? I knew nobody. I knew a couple names. But I knew that LA was the place that I had to go. And so I just started showing up at every record company and getting forcibly ejected. Because I would go, you know, we'd make it, you know, to the front desk and say, hey, I want to I want to meet with somebody and they're like, sorry, you need to know someone here. We don't accept unsolicited material. I'm like, Well, can you tell me who your head of a&r? No, we can't do that. Beat it. So what I started one day, I'm sitting outside Capitol Records. And I'm going, I can't go home. I've taken all this money from guys who could certainly kill me. Remember, I'm a kid. So Right. Adults are very scary at this point.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah, that's what's so amazing about how you're like you have yet some balls to do all this stuff.

Paul Laine:

Sure, sure. Well, I couldn't figure out how I was supposed to get to know who was working in. Anyways, I see a I see a bicycle courier walk out of Capitol Records. And I was like, light bulb that guy delivers. He would know, a lot of people in there. So I walked up to him and I said, Hey, like, what's it worth for you to just give me like one name? The guy who handles you know, you know, rock music? Who's the a&r guy capital, and he's like, 20 bucks. Boom, gave me a name. So that's what I did. I went outside every record company got name paid for names from delivery.

Chuck Shute:

Wow, this is awesome.

Paul Laine:

And then I went back to my, I had known enough from reading this book, which was like my by the platinum Rambo book, that, um, that entertainment lawyers are pretty much the people who did all the contracts, right? Sure. So and that that was an in if you could find it in an entertainment lawyer who would take you on that would get you into the labels a lot quicker. So I only knew of one entertainment lawyer and I didn't know him. And his name was Ken Dangerfield and he was Bryan Adams lawyer. And he was the entertainment lawyer in Vancouver. And so then I call this my own manager. And I would say, hey, you know, this is whatever made up name calling, you know, Ken Dangerfield referred me to you.

Chuck Shute:

So you're dropping the name. So like when you go into the name, okay.

Paul Laine:

I got the meeting. I got a meeting with everybody. Hmm. And at the same time, here's I'm gonna be dating myself. At the same time, there was an artist name. And you remember Tiffany? Yeah, yeah. Tiffany is big. Yeah. So So I was reading the newspaper. This is at the same time I'm getting these meetings. I'm reading a newspaper about Tiffany getting emancipation from her family. Right. And she had this lawyer, and that they had interviewed the lawyer. This guy named Rob Schwartz, and he was an attorney for for the Beach Boys and for the stones and whatever. And now Tiffany, I didn't know anything. I just saw his name. And I'm like, I'm gonna look this guy up. I got emancipation from my family. Maybe this guy will listen to me. So again, I found him a gotta use the can Dangerfield thing got into his son. This is an important part of the story. He got into his office. And he hadn't heard anything yet. Took my cassette went back into his office. He said Just Just wait here. And then. And then he came back out after about a half an hour and he said come into my office. All right. And he goes, Okay, he goes, You don't know Ken Dangerfield?

Chuck Shute:

Aha, busted.

Paul Laine:

Totally. Like my face gateway. Just totally went white. And he goes, but you know, I appreciate your Moxie. Moxie, that's good word for it. Yeah, and he goes and I think you can write hits and and he said I'm going to get your record deal. And I had within a week I had three offers one you know from Electra, one from CBS back then is now Sony. And, and one from a&m. So that's awesome. It went from Yeah, I went from being a broke ass kid to you know, getting all these offers so that was amazing. And, and and he was the guy that basically took me almost to the finish line. And at the end I brought in Michael Gaudin, who had originally told me to go back right. Okay, right. Yeah, finish off negotiating.

Chuck Shute:

Okay, so when is this time when? Tell me this? Tell the audience the story. I heard you tell the story about how you run a club, where I think Skid Row is playing and like Aerosmith, and Bon Jovi and all these guys and Mike Reno.

Paul Laine:

Yeah, that was the day I signed my record deal. Oh, Okay, and you get kicked out what the hell? Yeah, I got kicked out. I got forcibly ejected once again, but a tiny little man who, Doc, what's his name, Doc? McGhee, Doc

Chuck Shute:

McGhee, famous manager because like he said, like, you know you didn't he didn't you you weren't supposed to be back there but didn't you say like, Hey, I'm friends with Mike Reno and like,

Paul Laine:

Yeah, well, my kid brought me there. So Mike picked me up and he's like, we're gonna because we're being managed by the same manager at the time, which is sound right and Bryan Adams manager as well. So, he took me out it was May 12 1989 89. Yeah. And so, Bon Jovi had played the night before was Skid Row. I think Cinderella and yeah, at at the stadium. Aerosmith. We're in town recording at little mountain studios. The cult. We're also in town recording with Bob Rock at the time. So all of these folks were there and, and watch McCall. It was just finishing off with that band called you know, Vince Neil, sorry, not only crew, motley crew, we're finishing off

Chuck Shute:

Dr. Feelgood

Paul Laine:

Dr. Feelgood? Yeah, so everybody was there. Wow. And Skid Row would always play on that tour. Skid Row would do their own show the night after if they had a day off. So that was the next day. That was the May 12 I'd signed my deal that day Mike pick me up let's go see Skid Row and all these people were there.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah, so you get to meet any of the people before he got kicked out though.

Paul Laine:

Well, no, I got let back in but I like I waited for like 20 minutes outside in the alley going Oh, shit. Like, dude, you gotta understand this is my introduction into into rock and roll. This should be like the greatest day of my standing alone in the alley behind this. This big club going well, I guess this is about right.

Chuck Shute:

Oh, man, that's so cool that you even got to be back there even if you didn't get kicked out for part of it. That's

Paul Laine:

yeah, yeah. So that's uh, so then you know I got let back in and and then that that's one of the first time I met you know, Bon Jovi and, and Steven Tyler and all those folks.

Chuck Shute:

So to Steven Tyler, do you kind of have a relationship with Him? Because explain this like you're recording your solo album, and they're also making pump at the same studio. And so you got to watch them make pump.

Paul Laine:

Yeah, so the So Bruce Fairburn was the guy who produced my first album right and at that time hit both him and Bob Rock were the two biggest record arguably anyways,

Chuck Shute:

Oh, yeah. producers in the world for sure. Both in Vancouver, both in

Paul Laine:

Vancouver both working out a little mountain studios. So I was I was in pre production with Bruce while he was making pump. So it was more like a fatherly thing. Like you know he goes I want you to watch how I work while I'm finishing making this sound so I did like three months of pre production with him basically meaning I would bring in my my demos I'd meet with him on breaks. And he worked you know Bruce worked very clockwork you know, he come to studio at nine in the morning he leave at three go you know, take three hours off come back, you know around six or seven and then work another two hours and go home. You always go home to like, be with his kids coach. Soccer. And come back and, and yeah, work in the street. So I would like get in in those periods. And yeah, he just he just wanted me to watch real guys at work and soak it in and soak in how the sessions were going to go when I made my record with him which was, which was next so yeah, I got to watch. I got to watch Tyler work and immediately felt like I don't belong here. When when you watch someone who's that creative work in it forever changed me because I it got me unstuck in terms of how I thought about writing music because Steven Tyler is extremely off the cuff like the first idea. The first idea the first idea is that the probably the best idea that always works. He would never He would always finish he finished doing the vocal parts last so, you know, what a lot of people don't realize is like he is an amazing drummer. Amazing. Oh, I

Chuck Shute:

did not even know he played drums. Yeah, he's

Paul Laine:

he's better than then. Then Joey Kramer. So that's why like the pump thing Joey Kramer is is that you know they they shot a bunch of video and they turned it into like a little documentary. Right. Okay, Joey was going like Steve Is the nervous twitch in my eye? Meaning that Steven Tyler would keep going back out straight? No, you got to play it like this, you know, and then he play it perfectly. Wow. Because the guy is like, you know, just that groove. And that is Aerosmith. It's comes from that guy. You know, he would be singing guitar lines, he would be singing horn lines. He would just be like throwing it out there. And it's like watching a jazz player improvise. But he's doing it with music with composing, right? Yeah. And

Chuck Shute:

then you say he would compose and rework things like on the spot, and he would fight to do it his way. And you learned that from him, too.

Paul Laine:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And just the fact that he's like, how he got me unstuck was he he would always just sing a melody. I would watch melodies become lyrics and lyrics would would happen way out the months later. So you know, when when he was composing pump, he was just singing fanatical nonsense. Ah, right. So instead of loving about elevator be like David a madman. Okay. So getting out of his own way, knowing that you could go back and replace that with and not stopping the composing. So that's what I took on. You know, I went, Okay, I don't have to sit there and do things linearly, I can just compose, I can get that melody out of the way and not get hung up on it, because I can always go back and revisit it and at least flesh out the rest of this. So that allowed me to start composing a lot quicker and going, oh, you know, lightbulb moment.

Chuck Shute:

So you learn from watching. Did you ever have any interactions with him? Does he ever say Hey, kid, like, let me give you some advice or anything like that. I talked

Paul Laine:

to him quite a few times. Um, I was extremely nervous. And, uh, you know, very Wayne's World, I'm not worthy. In those moments, and also did not want to get kicked out. In terms of, you know, Fairbairn, always just like don't get in the way of any the creative process, just you're here to be a fly on the wall. So, you know, I didn't really speak to him unless I was spoken to. Okay. So Gotcha. And you got to remember it's, yeah, he's extremely. I was extremely nervous and shy around him. I think I would be to this day.

Chuck Shute:

Sure. Yeah, no, he's, uh, he's like, I would be nervous. today. I'm on my show, for sure. That'd be fun. But it'd be scary at the same time.

Paul Laine:

Yeah, yeah. So that's what it was. But it was great. I it I took away lifelong tools from watching that.

Chuck Shute:

That's amazing. That's a great introduction. So then you record the soul album, sticking it sticking in your ears that was called right. Yeah. Yeah. It's got the cool artwork where it's like the guys putting the CD literally in like his brain. It's cool. I don't know who designed that. That was Bruce

Paul Laine:

fairbairns idea because he had he loved this artist named Van Arno, which is this guy who's amazing. He's kind of like, the Salvador Dali of of who I love Salvador Dali. Yeah. San Francisco. Look the guy up one day. Okay. He's incredible. So that was that was, in fact that a giant part of the budget of the record was like spent on.

Chuck Shute:

Okay, well, and then. Yeah, so did you play guitar on a lot of the album too?

Paul Laine:

Yeah, I did. I wanted. I didn't want to, I figured I'll just do all the rhythm stuff. And I had a guitar player at the time, but he was he had gotten carpal tunnel syndrome. And just before we started making the record, he lost the use of a finger. So he was getting surgery. And I was like, What am I going to do? And then fairbairns like, I'm gonna get Zakk Wylde in to do some Whoa. Right? Because he could have been amazing. Yeah, it would have been amazing. What happened? Well, what happened is, um, we, we made the whole record and then we were just going to do the guitar solos at the end. That's normal anyways, yeah. And, um, and then sack for some reason couldn't come up on the day. And we only had the last week of the studio book before the next app was in and, um, and then fairbairns Just like you do it. And I was like, okay, so I ended up doing the majority of the lead playing on the record, and, you know, to this day, I wish someone else had done it but

Chuck Shute:

alright, so you don't you're not happy with how it turned out? I mean, Zakk Wylde like he's that's like,

Paul Laine:

that's insane. Yeah, he would have killed Yeah, I was so excited.

Chuck Shute:

Oh, wow. But you had some pretty good players. You had Pat Stewart who had played with Bryan Adams and Mickey Curry who also played with Bryan Adams and Hall notes and stuff. So yeah, that's pretty cool. And then you you got to tour with was it Richard Marx and Bryan Adams.

Paul Laine:

Uh, yeah, I played just played shows with Richard Marx and Adams Adams wasn't doing a lot of shows back then because he was still doing the waking up the neighbors album at that time. So, so yeah, um, you know, Jones, I don't know, played with a just mainly festivals in Canada, and then solo shows in the US, for some reason, like I signed an American record deal. So it really made it harder for me to play in Canada, as opposed to other places in the world, meaning like, radio in America started backing me because I was Canadian arm of the record company always treats you when you're signed directly to America as an American artists, so they give you much less play then if you are signed directly to Canada, so at that time, again, it sort of down the line that helped me out because you know, fans like Danger Danger knew who I was and, and, and Europe took a shining to me and and, and same with Japan, and I think that wouldn't have happened had I signed a Canadian deal.

Chuck Shute:

Okay, so you're, you're the electro right? Yes. So did they have like a Christmas party where you get to see Metallica and Motley Crue and all the other electro bands or how does that you'd have it any interactions with them? No, I wish that would have been so cool.

Paul Laine:

Yeah, no, I I look at it from because I because I became a they signed me as a solo artist. Um, you know, from the moment you sign that contract, you're busy. And I was I was that first year was just work, work, work. And first and second year, and then you know, it all fell apart. And I left my management company and then I ended up I ended up I guess we can go to the next thing. I ended up getting a call from Danger Danger,

Chuck Shute:

right? Well before that, though, like how did you you sang back up vocals on some big albums, poisons flesh and blood and the scorpions face the heat and you almost did did it for AC DC too. Right? Because

Paul Laine:

they were all Bruce Fairburn albums. Okay, so Bruce, Bruce, like what I did when I was working on my record, and then he just started calling me to do all these other albums. So, so that was amazing. Oh, yeah, easy thing because I was on tour with Satriani. Okay, right. So I was like, psyched. I knew I was gonna do the AC DC record, and then, oh, you're on tour. So again, you know, that's not a bad thing, either.

Chuck Shute:

Did you get a credit on the poison one, though? Or I didn't, I couldn't find that on the line. So

Paul Laine:

I'm the like, last name on the record. Okay. What's really funny is I'm still fighting for my rights on that album with sag AFTRA. Because so what they did is they just said, you know, special thanks to Paul lane and said that they're on the right. But they didn't give me the vocal credit. And then they did the same thing on the swallow this live album, because they used all my background vocals on the live record, right, because the band never sung the background stuff live, they just had it playing off a click tracks. Oh, I

Chuck Shute:

didn't know that. I thought, I thought Cece and Ricky and Bobby consent, they don't sing back.

Paul Laine:

In fact, they weren't even allowed in the studio. Um, the three days that I was cutting background tracks, so my, my doing the poisoned record, I got called in by faerber. And he said, Listen, I want you to do I want you to just throw everything you can at this record. And so I just got to compose lots of parts for it, and then he said, you know, the band's not going to be in here. Um, because I don't want any outside influence on this stuff. So that's how we tracked that record, but then they never put a vocal credit. A proper vocal credit on the record.

Chuck Shute:

That's kind of like a Milli Vanilli kind of thing. Yeah, so it's backing vocals, but still, are you on every song? Sorry, why are you on every song on flushable

Paul Laine:

song? Yeah, wow. Yeah. Um, you know, but that that happened all the time. Like the guys in Danger Danger saying backups on cherry pie.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah, that's right. Well, they got credit for

Paul Laine:

that though. Dang. Okay. I was on the record.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah, and CeCe plays the lead on the on cherry pie that's, that's credited as well. Okay. Yeah, there you go. So yeah, you didn't get but you got credit on Face the heat the scorpions won.

Paul Laine:

Yeah, I did. And I you know, like I just did, I did the boys like girls record and they just credited as the Vancouver mafia. So you know, I did love drunk and all that, you know, whatever that heartbreak song is and wow. Yeah, and then hinder all the same producer setup again. Oh, wow,

Chuck Shute:

I didn't know that. Yeah, this is all stuff that's off off the record, I guess or

Paul Laine:

Yeah, I did it. Take what's called take it to the limit?

Chuck Shute:

I think so. Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah. Okay. But so yeah, so then. So back in dia going back in time. So you get the call from danger, danger. This is a question. I don't even know if you know the answer. Why did they? What was the problem they had with Ted? Was it money? Was it a creative differences? Or I never figured out why they fired him. I mean, it's all water under the bridge now anyways, but yeah,

Paul Laine:

um, I think that I don't know, the actual reason. Um, but I think that, you know, they the the marriage was just getting to the point where they were fighting all the time. I mean, look, when you have when you have two guys like Steve and Bruno, who were the composers of that group, I mean, essentially, it was their band. Right? And then you've got it, then you're running a band, like when you're the when you're the main writers, you're making the majority the money. Okay? Not necessarily from live, but from album sales. Sure. So, that's all fine and dandy in the beginning, you know, when you're starting out, but as time goes on, um, you know, people want to get paid more or feel like they're do more. And I don't know if that was the situation, but I, I've known enough bands, to know that that's generally the situation. And, and the start of all the fighting as soon as money comes into play. You know, how do you make it fair and equitable for all because sometimes with some people, it's not fair. Right? It's fair and equitable. When truly it is.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah, I never it's, that's a complicated thing. Because like, on the Guns and Roses, Appetite for Destruction, it's like, they all it's like, credited, you know, they wrote every song together. And I'm like, I'm pretty sure Steven Adler, you know, didn't write a lot of those songs, like, he plays the drums, and he does the drum parts. But is that an equal part? To the person who wrote the lyrics and the melodies and all that?

Paul Laine:

Yeah, I can tell you know, it's not. It's not it's, it's, when you compose this stuff, you know, you you, you give up a year of your life. And then, you know, the drummer comes in and plays this part in five minutes. Yeah. And so you can see that as success goes on, and everyone's you know, either that's, I mean, look, they try bands who set it up that way are bands that are trying to not break up, but at the end of the day, when you renegotiate upon success, and I've seen it time and time again. You know, the writers generally go Alright, enough guys. Enough, we're gonna take the lion's share, and pay you guys a salary, you know, huh? So, you know, that happened with the Eagles. It happened with Bon Jovi. It just there's a million of those stories.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah, it's negotiating, I guess. And, I mean, yeah, that's the same thing. Like Ted, maybe didn't write the songs. But I mean, he was the face of the band at the time, so I could see why, you know, I could see his side of it, too. But yeah, at the same time, you can't really give him the composition credit, if he's not writing the song. So, sure,

Paul Laine:

sure. And then if there's, you know, if that people getting upset about money inside the band, because, you know, the writers are making a little bit more, you know, it's but it's a good argument. I mean, without it without the, without the hits being written. You have no career.

Chuck Shute:

True. Very true. Yeah. And it's like a now it's like, that argument probably doesn't mean as much because everyone makes money off the concerts, not necessarily the album sales as much.

Paul Laine:

That's right. Yeah, the whole thing has shifted. Yeah, we live in interesting times now it's, it's it's a it's weird for me to go to these festivals and see bands that are like, you know, killing it online. But making nothing from playing, you know, like Sweden Rock or whatever. Because, you know, and they and they don't necessarily have album sales. So the it's, it's, there's a lot of illusion going on out there. For sure. For sure. So

Chuck Shute:

you join Danger, danger. I love that cockroach wreck. I mean, obviously, I didn't hear it till years later, but like it's interesting, because there's two versions there's yours and then Ted's But Ted didn't do the Jim Croce coat cover was that did you only sing on that one? The time in the bottle?

Paul Laine:

I think so. But I don't know. Um,

Chuck Shute:

that's a great cover, though.

Paul Laine:

Thank you. Yeah, that was fun. That's the last thing we did. And it Bruno actually play cello on that. Oh, okay. Cuz he's, uh, yeah, Bruno plays cello a lot of people don't know that. Yeah,

Chuck Shute:

he's talented. He plays a guitar bass. Keyboards and I guess study no cello. Cello

Paul Laine:

two. Yeah, yeah. No, he's he's an incredible musician. Incredible.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah. And then you do the Donna, which I just learned from listening to the interviews that you were originally going to call that gasoline bath. I changed the name of the band. That's pretty crazy.

Paul Laine:

Well, at the time, I, you know, when I joined Danger, danger, you know, I just left a lawsuit with Electra and Bruce Allen and that whole thing Yeah, solo career. And then I joined Danger Danger and did the cockroach record and then all of a sudden, another lawsuit that sucks. And yeah, so that record didn't come out and and, you know I've just gone Am I just like forever gonna be in lawsuits and and not have a career anymore? And so we decided that let's just write a record because I haven't written anything with them. Yeah, it's written right so don, and you know what that era was like in the sort of early to mid 90s Everything was changing obviously with grunge and what was going on and, and, and, and bands were just trying to save their careers and save themselves. Um, we decided, well, let's just write a record as a band and it doesn't have to be Danger, danger. Hmm. Right, because I hadn't been released with them. Yeah, so this could potentially be a whole new thing. So we were all kind of excited, like, yeah, you know, fuck doing Danger, danger. And let's, let's just and then one day I'm pouring gas at the gas that guys flew up here from New York. They stay here for three months. I had I had my studio here on the island and, and yeah, I I overfilled the gas tank and got gas all over Bruno. And he's like, do gasoline bath and then we're like, that'd be a great thing.

Chuck Shute:

It's kind of a cool name. Especially at the time, right? Yeah. Would have been a perfect 90s van name. Did you say that you saw Allison chains like they would come up and play shows in Vancouver before they were famous.

Paul Laine:

Even worse than that. I have a funny story way worse than that. I was. So the day I signed my my record deal. I met my kind of first girlfriend at that time. The same night, you know, I was hanging out with you. That was cool that night right? Other than me alley anyways. So this girl took me home and there was an Allison chains poster. This is like on her bedroom wall. I've never told this story publicly. Awesome. So I'm looking at she's like, Yeah, I dated the sky name lane. You know, and I go I this is me just after sighing right? I reach over above her waterbed and I tear down the post and I go these guys go nowhere

Chuck Shute:

Oh, that's hilarious. Now remember, the

Paul Laine:

poster said like, what was the club was down in gas town in Vancouver? It's like a little town pump. Is that? Right? Allison chains at the town pump. Like, fuck these guys.

Chuck Shute:

That's funny that you can remember that like,

Paul Laine:

totally because of course I remember it because like, you know, four years later, they were like one of the biggest

Chuck Shute:

fans in the world. And you're like, wait a minute, that wasn't what I said. We're going nowhere. Right. And

Paul Laine:

I had long left that you know, that girl that I was doing. That's hilarious. I would every time I thought about it. I would just get this little bit of like, embarrassment that she would be sitting at home going Yeah, fuck you. Yeah.

Chuck Shute:

Wow.

Paul Laine:

I made the wrong choice.

Chuck Shute:

Oh, that's hilarious. Yeah, so a Danger Danger, man. So many. You guys had a few albums together. You never did any shows though. In the did you do any shows in the States? Or never do? We just toured the east? Oh, of course never came to Seattle. Yeah,

Paul Laine:

we just did the east and you know, the Midwest and, and quite a few tours doing that. But, you know, again, back then, because grunge was king. It was like all nightclubs.

Chuck Shute:

Hmm. So you never thought of doing like one of those? Because I know I remember there was like, what do they call like The Rock never stops tour where they would get like a bunch of bands of that era and tour together. You guys never wanted to be a part of one of those things or anything.

Paul Laine:

I think it was all it always came down to financial reasons. You know, like someone would offer us a tour for this amount of money and we go okay, we'll go do that. But then to share it to go and do those things like Steven Bruno had already been doing stadium and, you know, tours with Kiss and, and, and arenas with Warren and whoever else. So there was not that wasn't a tendency to want to eat a bunch of humble pie back then. You know, I mean, like, Oh, I'm gonna go out with 6x now and, you know, try to keep my career live a lot of bands felt that I can just, you know, I'll just take the shows that that were offered the right amount of money and we'll just do that. Okay. You know, I understood it. You guys went to Europe though, right? Or Yeah, we did a we did three months with UFO. Oh, wow. Which was yeah, that was a really weird tour. Great tour, but Michael Schenker was was with them as well. So full lineup and Michael Schenker is fucking crazy. In a good way or no parable, like he'd fucking come in after a show and throw he traveled separately. You know, you pick up a chair and he'd be upset with the band and walk in the dressing room and just fucking throw a chair at them and start screaming at them. What's why paid separately he had his own limo that just followed the tour bus around because the dude is not great player. Amazing.

Chuck Shute:

Interesting. I didn't I did not know that I yeah, I mean, I know he's a great guitar player didn't know he was he was crazy guy though. Yeah.

Paul Laine:

I just I just witnessed like, the weirdest behavior even the crew was like you like he would? He would do stuff like okay, like if we had a night where people were just shouting Danger Danger still while UFO walked on stage. He would then punish us for for that. And we would have to like okay, their powers cut in half and no lights. And this is all like, you know, big theaters and concert halls and stuff throughout Europe and the crew was all American. And they would come to us and just go, Dude, we're really sorry that this is so we're just going to show you the power amps are here. We're gonna leave. And whatever you guys do before we go back on station. We had a guy sitting like every night Ray by where the power amps were waiting for Michael, he would come and check them. Make sure that they were turned to half would leave.

Chuck Shute:

Wow. These are grown men. This is crazy. That right? Yeah.

Paul Laine:

Yeah. And I felt bad for the rest of the UFO because they had to put up with a guy who was quite often unkind.

Chuck Shute:

Well, yeah, that makes sense. Cuz I just had rob the bass player on my show a couple months. And I was asking like, Hey, do you guys, you know, you got a few, like Final shows? I think they're doing I was like, Do you think he bring up Michael Schenker? And he's just like, oh, I don't know about that. Now I know why that they don't want to. Okay, that makes sense. But then, and then you did have this project. shoegazer my buddy from Europe. He told me about that. And I checked it out. I was like, Oh, this is I had to find on YouTube. Something on Spotify. I don't think but it was like it really like a modern sounding 90s kind of rock. I feel like that could have been a big hit album.

Paul Laine:

Yeah. So the guy who ran MTM, which was a label that we assigned to with Danger Danger. Guy named Magnus Sonic fist. Swedish guy got got offered a new record label by Europe had it at that time, the biggest distribution company in Europe was a company called gins. And so they offered him and and MTM was the most successful independent record label. So Magnus flew out to see me in England. The night we recorded the live in nude. Okay, last that that's my

Chuck Shute:

Danger, danger. Ever. Yeah. Um,

Paul Laine:

so it's nice to get that on, on record, so to speak. I didn't know it was gonna be my last night I just, yeah, he flew down and offered me record deal. And I was like, I he goes, I you know, I hear what you I had always been writing the more modern stuff for Danger, danger, we we, you know, decide after dawn, we decided to write separately, Steven brule needed to write together and I needed not to write with him because the fighting is just too much and made me miserable.

Chuck Shute:

So you fought with them? Or they fought with each other? Or both? Oh,

Paul Laine:

no, just me with them. And fighting is the wrong term. Just you know, I didn't agree with direction and stuff. I was always like, we should try and take the band into more modern way of doing things instead of just, you know, rightly or wrongly. That's just what I wanted to do. Sure. So when I got when Magnus flew down to see me and told me about the launch of this new label, and he said, I want you to be one of the first artists I sign. And he had heard some demos that I'd done. Yeah, so I was like, Well, this is this is my jumping off point. This is where it's time to go back to just being me and and then sadly Magnus left the label like a month into now I'm getting

Chuck Shute:

another tragedy another.

Paul Laine:

So I got all this and at that point, that's when I left. I just I was so frustrated. Um, and that was around 2003 2004 That time around there right decided to just be on the other side of the console,

Chuck Shute:

is that when you started the film and TV studio or whatever

Paul Laine:

it was, yeah, I went to I moved my studio from here to Vancouver. And yeah, I started, you know, getting into doing commercial work. And, you know, I was still working with, like pop artists at that time. And that's when I started working. You know, like singing on the Brian House Records, the hinder albums and boys like girls, that whole era. And I just didn't, you know, I was trying to just stay on the other side of the business, because I was done.

Chuck Shute:

But you weren't sure. So this was when you're, you're, you're working your studio job in the day, and then you're playing the clubs at night and sleeping three hours a night or whatever, for seven years.

Paul Laine:

Seven years? Yeah.

Chuck Shute:

How the hell did you do that? That's insane.

Paul Laine:

Yeah, I don't know. I, I, it took me a long time to get over my anger at myself for for, for beating a dead horse for so long. I you know, the good thing about it is that I made a lot of connections and worked on some good records. And, and, you know, everything leads you to the next part of your life, right. I knew that I really needed to be. I was, I was kind of miserable. And I wanted to, you know, just see if I could get a record deal. Have a shot, not even have a record deal. Just like make records. And, you know, hopefully someone would buy them. I just needed to do. I just needed to do it again. So sort of the Dark Horse thing.

Chuck Shute:

Okay. Yeah, right. Yeah, that one. So is that what you were doing? The clubs that are doing a variety of things like cover bands and other stuff are late in

Paul Laine:

like I just played, I worked for the Roxy nightclub in Vancouver, which was a live music venue. And they paid very, very well. And I played in three different bands. So I was like, wow, entry band on Sunday night. And then, you know, Monday, or Monday was rock Saturday was rock band. Tuesday was like a punk. Alternative band Wednesday was like all British Invasion music. Thursday was like, playing with a DJ and a band at the scent, you know, doing mashups. Okay? It's crazy that I had Friday off, and then I was back to work on Saturday. Wow. So and then I will Yeah, I worked. I worked in the studio from 10 in the morning till seven at night, and I played from nine at night until three in the morning.

Chuck Shute:

That's, that's insane. Yeah, that's it. Well, I guess it's good. Like you said, it's good that you made all these connections, though. And,

Paul Laine:

yeah, and, uh, whatever. I just, I just died pivoted and, and decided to move back to the island and get my studio out of the city and take it back. I held on to my house all these years that I was away working. And what's really funny is a 2012, January 1, I had moved into my house, and like no furniture, anything. I had internet. I get email from fronteers. Literally woke up that day, and said, you know, what am I going to do with my life? How am I going to make this all happen? Yeah. Are you still there? Yeah,

Chuck Shute:

I'm here. Yeah, you're frozen a little bit, but uh, I can hear you. Yeah,

Paul Laine:

you are sorry. It's yeah. Sorry. I don't know if there's a problem with my memory internet. I don't know what's going on. Um, so yeah, I was, uh, I had a record. I was offered a record contract. And I had to turn it down and say no.

Chuck Shute:

So it's not what you would want it this whole time, though.

Paul Laine:

Well, yeah. But I was I was bent on doing. I was bent on doing the Southern rock thing. And I got this entire album. And I thought, No, I don't Now's not the time. I was I was really happy with the music I was writing. And I had made some connections in Nashville and, and I just seemed like what I wanted to do, and it was kind of like, you know, Southern rock with country influence. And I don't know what dark horse was, but it was kind of, you know, I felt that music at that time. Mm hmm. So, so yeah, so frontiers bugged me every year and I was like, no, no, no, no. And then they called Bruno. And they knew that him and I were friends. And so the whole defiance thing. It's ended up being a sentimental thing for me. Hmm, I was like, I didn't, I was just like, okay, Bruno, and I make a record together could be really interesting. And I love the guy one of my best friends and, and the soul. Yeah, we just we wrote this record in three months and I thought nothing of it. I thought, no one's gonna buy this. No one gives a shit and And who cares? We wrote a fun record and and then that's just changed my whole life. Really?

Chuck Shute:

Yeah. Because it got really good reviews and then you've done shows and

Paul Laine:

yeah, yeah, all it got me the got me to television gig.

Chuck Shute:

Oh it did. That's how you got the television

Paul Laine:

thing? Yeah, yeah, just kind of put me on the map as a writer again. Okay. It's a performer.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah. And that album didn't chart in Italy or something on Billboard charts. That's pretty cool.

Paul Laine:

Yeah, that's right. And yeah, and Europe's like, we entered the chart at 44. And I'm like, No, that's cool. Like, I never thought that that would happen. And not that that's anything to brag about. But you got to understand, I went from, from, you know, sort of trying to make my way back into the business as a writer and performer to that, and it happens. So, and then, you know, one thing leads to another and you kind of see, oh, I can diversify. I can write for film. Now I can, you know, uh, yeah, what I should have always been doing.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah. And you've got two records of the defiance. And then is there a third one coming out?

Paul Laine:

We just finished writing it. And now we're, we're, we start retracting it. I'm not next week that we get. We're waiting for Van Romain to come off. He's on tour with re K Glacies right now. Okay. He's the drummer drummed on the first album. Right. And so we always, yeah, we're gonna get him to do the second album as well. But then that didn't work out because of his touring schedule. Okay, this time, we kind of got planned and, and so yeah, he gets home on the 21st of November and probably give him a week. And we start tracking that record from the ground up again. Okay, so it's demo up the entire record.

Chuck Shute:

It's all written and everything then

Paul Laine:

it's written and there is a version of the record. That's done. Okay. The demo over, okay. And then we go back and retract and then we just fix everything. You know, we start we do it old school, we start with a drum tracks and then recut bass, guitars, keyboards, vocals, everything. Okay, for real? So, yeah.

Chuck Shute:

Is there any? Can you tell us anything about is there any song titles? Or is it gonna? I'm assuming it's gonna be a similar sound of the first two and

Paul Laine:

yeah, it so look, what we try and do is a progression each record in our minds, at least anyways, you know, we try and build on what we did in the past and make it just a little bit more modern. This, this record is interesting. Um, it's definitely building on from the from the last one, but there's a couple surprises in there. So, which we hope that people like, okay, they'll crucify us for? Yeah,

Chuck Shute:

as like, you don't want to say it's surprise. So you can't tell me what it is like, you know, like country songs are like, no, no, no,

Paul Laine:

no, nothing like that. Okay, like, you know, when you want to stretch out a little more musically on a couple tracks, try and do that every record anyways. Right. But let's explore this a little more. Like, let's add this kind of influence in. Bruno had this ballad idea, which kind of had this Moroccan cool vibe behind it. And I'm like, You know what, people might hate us for doing this. Or they might love it. They might actually love this, that those songs a little bit different. Or the sleepers, you know, people like I hated it when I first listened to it, and then it ends up being the song that they like the most

Chuck Shute:

totally. That happens all the time. For sure. Yeah. And you write all different styles for the film and TV, right? Like you write dance music and everything.

Paul Laine:

Dude, I just spent a week writing Kpop for a show called celebrity moms.

Chuck Shute:

Wow. How do you write Kpop? How do you even figure out how to do that?

Paul Laine:

I don't I never listened to black, pink or BTS in my life. But they send me a brief. And then in that brief is a bunch of music and you just digest it and you go, okay, like, look, After composing for I've been composing now for what? 40 years. Ouch. So you understand, you know, all music has a common thread that runs through it. Hmm. Especially when you're writing like every, you know, there's intros versus choruses. Well, things don't really ever change. Just the components change. You know, in Korean pop. It's like, well, the bass is going to be a synth bass and then the guitar parts are going to be keyboard parts. And then there's really no really sort of specific things inside that genre that make it what it is. Just as country music you would add a steel guitar and a fiddle, and it's like, look, look what we just went through with country music. That was all 80s Rock writers writing the new country music

Chuck Shute:

repackaged. Yeah,

Paul Laine:

yeah, package. It's like it's 80s hard rock repackages country, you till you drop the voice, you know an octave vignettes. Still guitar and banjo and but it's still the same. It's still that same way of, of writing. They just. Yeah. So that's my point.

Chuck Shute:

That's cool. What else do you have coming out? Like there was this thing like summer of 88 You're writing the soundtrack for that sounds really cool.

Paul Laine:

Yeah. So summer 88 is a cool thing that I'm doing. I have a pal named Andrew Roy, who was really big in the, in the, in the TV music supervision world. So like he writes for, I mean, every show you've watched, he probably has a piece in it. So he lives here as well. And we started writing some stuff for Netflix together. And we came up with this idea of like, well with Netflix. It crucial musics a company that handles most of Netflix stuff. In terms of music for the series. So we just asked them said, Look, if we write you a book of material, um, can we do it? Not exclusively? Can we, you know, compose this, because it shows like, we are writing for like Cobra Kai and stuff like a lot of other show, you know, sort of based shows, right? Yeah, sure thing using. So we're seeing we're seeing a trend in the in the TV industry to harken back to the 80s and have some sort of legitimate sounding music. So for us, we're like, Well, why don't we just compose the soundtrack. And then we can let people know, you know, what, what shows they're in. But it essentially will be a soundtrack but a soundtrack for a bunch of different different shows. Okay, so we created this kind of custom palette of music that fits that fits that era. So we just said you know, 1988 we're going to compose a whole album that's going to appear in all these shows. And and then we can release the record. So that's that's exactly what we were doing. We just we just finished a track last night. Another track for Netflix, they asked us Can you raise us some stripper rock?

Chuck Shute:

Oh, that's funny. So the awesome

Paul Laine:

yeah, so we did we wrote like we wrote like a like a motley crew kind of track. Nice. It's good, man. It's,

Chuck Shute:

that's really cool. Now and then are you going to be doing some live shows? You're on this? What does it indoor summer, in Hamburg, you're going to play as a solo

Paul Laine:

artist. So yeah, that's right. And you know, every year I go out and I do well, you know, pre pandemic, would be going to Australia over to Europe, whatever. It's doing solo shows which I can do the Pauline stuff and do my danger. dangerous stuff in a little bit of defiance. Right? Yeah. So I get offered these things every year. And that's one of the shows that I'm doing. I just got a bunch of other shows coming up. Next year. Touchwood should everything be? Okay, in terms of travel and COVID? And right, all the insurance things that go along with that. So

Chuck Shute:

would you have shows on the West Coast then? Like, maybe in LA or Vegas? Or I'm in Arizona now. So I mean, but I could drive five hours?

Paul Laine:

Yeah, not so far. Sorry, man.

Chuck Shute:

But it could happen right? What was there talk of like, what was the story I heard? Like, is there talk of doing Danger Danger reunion with with both you and Ted or something? Or what was this

Paul Laine:

that's been brought up a few times, um, and we're all down with it. So we'll see. We'll see if it happens. That you know, a lot of that talk was happening just again, pre pandemic and then you know, all of this happened and, and I don't even know what promoters exist anymore. Really? Yeah, just you know, the obvious ones are but it killed it killed a lot of promoters who had shows book and had to hand back the money had to cancel.

Chuck Shute:

I have that sucks. Well, you could also do like, some more of these festival type thing. That seems like a good gig or like the cruises and stuff like if you have any offers for that are

Paul Laine:

sure yeah, there's talk of us doing the because danger dangerous already done it a couple times. Sorry. What is that called? Monsters of Rock cruises. Talk of us doing that with the Defiance which is cool. And and if we do the danger, you know, the full both there's the Danger Danger thing? I'm sure that will, you know, that may get offered to us as well. Um, again, at the end of the day, I'm I'm the kind of guy like until it's for sure. You know, it's all just talk.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Anything else? That's uh, that's up in the air any other projects you're working on?

Paul Laine:

Yeah, I'm doing this other thing with another buddy of mine who's in the blood red STS a guy lead rebel. Um, he's a He's a guitar player out of Manchester, UK. So we got a we got a little side project called jetset junkies,

Chuck Shute:

which is a cool name. Yeah.

Paul Laine:

We just like Lee and I became friends 30 years ago we met on I was doing headbangers ball in, in Milton Keynes and Manchester, UK. And I think he's playing for Gary Hughes or Glenn Hughes somebody and he leaves like the Lee is the go to guy. One of those go to guys in England, like when American artists is coming over, he gets the session gig you know, to play the put the band together and particularly if it's a if it's a solo artist. So anyways, him and I were playing this gods of ALR festival 30 years ago. And we always just said, One day, we're going to do a band dude. All right. I got him the gig and television after we remained friends from that day. Until now, and when I got the TV gig, I went over to Europe, and I was doing some shows with him. And I'm like, Dude, you want in on this? And he's like, yeah, so I go, maybe we should do our band thing at the same. So while we were composing for TV shows, we started putting aside songs, you know,

Chuck Shute:

so what kind of music is jet city junkies?

Paul Laine:

Jet Set junkies is your Yeah, we have a heavier and more modern. Okay. Um, so yeah, we've, we've got the first single we've got is a song called lighted up that's coming, it's gonna come out. We were supposed to put it out in June. But then we both just got ridiculously busy with TV. And we're like, we don't have enough time to put put the attention into this like it's done. It's just, you know, I don't even have time to do social media. At this point. I'm like working a million different TV shows doing the Defiance record. And of course, getting yelled at by the record company like it better being on time. When's the deadline? January like this is why we're freaking out. We'll get it done. But our deadline is January 31. Okay, well, we're we're just starting to retract. Normally, we'd be like, have an extra month. A little, we'd be a little but this record took so long to write. Because of my schedule, because of my my TV schedule was overwhelming this this year. And that's because, you know, last year a lot of shows went into they just shut down. Right? So there was a race to ride this year to get like new content out and get the shows that were already sort of halfway through production finished. And so I have literally been working every day. I work 12 hours a day most days.

Chuck Shute:

Damn, you're still putting in the hours. Crazy.

Paul Laine:

I chose this prison by the way. Yeah. Well, you

Chuck Shute:

love it though, right? Because it's music. I mean, it's not like you're doing accounting or something.

Paul Laine:

Yeah, no, I love it. I'm getting burnt out. I'm looking forward to I'm looking forward to the Defiance record being done. And I think I'm gonna take a month off in February maybe and, and just not think about music for four weeks.

Chuck Shute:

Well, there you go. You should come down to Arizona. It's nice and sunny down here. You could do some shows and

Paul Laine:

I I've only been down there once I've been to where did I go? Wherever Camelback Mountain is Yeah. Beautiful. Yeah.

Chuck Shute:

Candlebox a great hike. Yeah, I mean, it's like from now until like March. It's like, this is the place to be in the world. I think the weather's amazing right now. That's why I moved here from Mr. Chua. So yeah, I know well listen, right?

Paul Laine:

Like when you go up in the Pacific Gas. People do not understand like, seasonal affective disorder. It's real. Real Man. The rain comes in. And there's a reason grunge music

Chuck Shute:

came. Yes. No. It's funny, though, cuz my girlfriend's from here. So we take her back to Washington. And she's just like, she's looking at these trees that are huge. And she's and then it made me appreciate it way more, because I'm like, because I always grew up with that. I was like, oh, trees, who cares about that? You know, it's like, but you know, then you appreciate the other stuff about Washington that the trees, the lakes, the mountains. Those things are but it's still the sunshine. It's just something about that. That's for me. I love it. So

Paul Laine:

yeah, yeah, I am very jealous. I want to my future plans are to be I think Bruno wants to move to Arizona. So he wants to cash out of should and move there. And I want to spend winters down there. You should

Chuck Shute:

it's amazing. Yeah, if you can get a second you can get houses dinner cheap too, compared to like Washington and probably Canada too. I'm assuming you anything

Paul Laine:

is cheaper than here. I live in one of the most expensive like Vancouver is is one of the most expensive cities in the world.

Chuck Shute:

Is it really?

Paul Laine:

Oh yeah. Wow. I

Chuck Shute:

didn't know that.

Paul Laine:

Look it up. Yeah, people work on it as far as cost Living in Vancouver, a couple if you're, you know, husband and wife 75% of your income is spent on just renting. Wow. So it's very, very hard. So the, you know, China and Japan bought up the city and, and you know, we have a huge much the way in Seattle huge Asian business community. Right. Right. And so that made it unaffordable for that's not a racial thing at all. That's just

Chuck Shute:

common. No, no, I think I think I heard the same thing in Washington. I don't know. I don't know the I haven't done the research on this. But then a lot of Asia and like a people in China businessmen or whatever, would buy houses in Washington because they have a limit or something there. They can only buy so much. So then they buy these houses in Washington, and then they just they sell them or rent them out or whatever. So it's like a business thing.

Paul Laine:

Yeah, it's it's an investment opportunity. Investment. Yeah. And then there's, you know, there's lots of I mean, you can't blame folks for wanting to get out of China. You know, there's lots of people just trying to get here and, and start a new life, right?

Chuck Shute:

Mm hmm. Yeah, for sure. But yeah, come on down to do some shows. I think that'd be fun. That'd be that'd be cool. But yeah, sounds like a real busy so I'll let you get back to doing all that work and stuff. I do like to end each episode with a charity though. Is there? Is there a charity or nonprofit or cause that is near and dear to your heart? Yeah.

Paul Laine:

My favorite charity here is Children's Hospital. Oh, perfect. Okay. Yeah, it's just, it's BC children's dot ca.

Chuck Shute:

Okay, I'll put that in the link along with the with a put that in the notes along with your links to you have, do you have an actual website? Or

Paul Laine:

I just have a I just have Facebook, and I have my studio websites to your website. Okay. Yeah.

Chuck Shute:

But I know you guys can. Yeah, people can buy the defiance. You guys just are releasing that on vinyl. Right. That's pretty exciting. Well,

Paul Laine:

frontiers records is releasing it. Yeah. So that just came out. I didn't even know I just

Chuck Shute:

I saw you share it. I was like, Oh, that's cool. So So yeah, people should buy that. And then if they have a few extra dollars, they can throw that towards Children's Hospital. Yeah, that's lovely. Okay. Well, thanks so much for doing this. Paul has been a blast. Thank you. All right. I'll talk to you later. Bye, Paul lane, everybody. His current bands are the defiance. He's got two records out with them now and a third one on the way and jetset junkies is the other band. So look for new music from that one. I want to thank Paul for coming on the show. And make sure to follow him on Facebook for updates with all his stuff. And while you're on Facebook, I would love for you to follow my page, the chuck shoot podcast as well. So you can keep up with future episodes and everything I'm doing. And again, if you haven't already, please subscribe to the show on YouTube. Or I will hunt you down and forcibly make you subscribe and nobody wants that. So so just subscribe. Thank you for listening. Have a great rest of your day and remember, shoot for the moon